In this study, the beginning of modern aesthetics was examined in the context of intellectual history and debate in Germany in the early 18th century, and particularly focused on the connection with the christian pietism. As a starting point, the “Wer ...
In this study, the beginning of modern aesthetics was examined in the context of intellectual history and debate in Germany in the early 18th century, and particularly focused on the connection with the christian pietism. As a starting point, the “Werthheim Bible Controversy”(1735) was discussed. It was a new translation by a lutheran theologian, Johann Lorenz Schmidt, and it caused a lot of controversy for its rational and clear translation, because the church wanted a biblical text with some ambiguity and vagueness in order to encourage believers’ faith. However, in the Wertheim Bible, the verses were translated so dryly that the mysterious power of the Bible was “castrated”. Schmidt was charged to commit a serious sin of destroying Christianity by removing the “prophetic character” of the Bible. And someone understood the prophetic nature of the Bible as a “poetic character”. Bible should be regarded as a piece of fine art with a poetic character, which cannot be reasonably discussed.
From this historical background, the beginning of modern aesthetics can be understood. In the fall of 1735, when the Wertheim Bible controversy reached its peak, Baumgarten, as a student of theology at Halle University, submitted the Reflections on Poetry as his thesis. It is hard to imagine that this dissertation, which announced the beginning of modern aesthetics, had nothing to do with the issue of the Wertheim Bible, which was a subject of great debate. At that time, the Department of Theology at Halle University was led by Joachim Lange, who was at the forefront of the war to oust Wolffianism, and Baumgarten’s elder brother joined the signature as a professor. Baumgarten’s friend, Immanuel Pyra, translated Boileau’s French translation of Longinus’ The Sublime into German in 1736 because of the threatened artistry of the biblical language. And similar theological motives are found also in Baumgarten’s aesthetic work.
In Reflections on Poetry, Baumgarten argues that a new study for emotional knowledge and aesthetic thinking is asked, which is named “aesthetica”. It should be added to Wolf’s logic, and will have to develop in parallel with it. If logic is pursuing “clear and distinct knowledge” by means of reason, aesthetics should pursue “clear, but not distinct knowledge” by means of sensitivity, that is, knowledge with confusion (cognitio clara, non distincta, sed confusa, § 115).
With the advent of aesthetics, logic gradually came to the corner. Baumgarten has two reasons for the introduction of a new discipline. One is that knowledge more appropriate for us humans is more about individual facts than abstract ones, and the other is that the possibility of poetry and art is considered to be blocked in the realm of reason. In other words, clear and distinct knowledge is for us humans, exceptionally possible only in extremely narrow and special fields such as mathematics, and in fact, most of our knowledge is confused and only a gradual approach to the universal truth through induction. The ability of reason is limited, and Baumgarten finds an explanation of such inherent limitation in the fall of man recorded in the Bible. Therefore, Baumgarten’s pietistic theology was in the background of his asserting to establish a new discipline, “aesthetica”.